The predator I never expected

[MeepBeep]

Also, it is actually legal to acquire wild turkey eggs and poults and raise them, ether to release on your land or to keep.

Could you disclose your State?

From my reading of many State laws and having spent many years in the exotic animal trade business, it's very rare for a State to allow a wild 'game' animal and/or egg to be taken from the wild and kept, raised or even raised released unless you obtain permits and licenses to do so in advance... Heck in my state it's even illegal to posses a bird nest... Yeah I know people do it all the time but that doesn't make it legal...

To put this in perspective in Illinois, it's a Class A misdemeanor charge and carries up to 1 year in jail and/or a $2500 fine...

 

[centrarchid]

Could you disclose your State?

From my reading of many State laws and having spent many years in the exotic animal trade business, it's very rare for a State to allow a wild 'game' animal and/or egg to be taken from the wild and kept, raised or even raised released unless you obtain permits and licenses to do so in advance... Heck in my state it's even illegal to posses a bird nest... Yeah I know people do it all the time but that doesn't make it legal...

To put this in perspective in Illinois, it's a Class A misdemeanor charge and carries up to 1 year in jail and/or a $2500 fine...

Holds for most states. We used to salvage turkey eggs from nest busted cutting hay but knew it was not sanctioned by state or likely to benefit the turkey population as a whole.

 

[waddles99]

Even if you did have the right intentions in mind, you still would likely be charged. A couple faced jail time for caring for an injured baby deer. Apparently the government would rather see wildlife die than be in the possession of civilians....

 

[centrarchid]

Even if you did have the right intentions in mind, you still would likely be charged. A couple faced jail time for caring for an injured baby deer. Apparently the government would rather see wildlife die than be in the possession of civilians....

I bet there were complicating issues. Couple may have been doing other things as well. Most people are poorly equipped for handling wildlife, especially as the animals increase in size / mature. That can result in surrounding community being threatened by the animal or wild populations similar so.

 

[MeepBeep]

Even if you did have the right intentions in mind, you still would likely be charged. A couple faced jail time for caring for an injured baby deer. Apparently the government would rather see wildlife die than be in the possession of civilians....

If you have the right intentions and are worried about prosecution get licensed or turn the animal over to a licensed rehab clinic...

The blunt reality is that if you allow people to care for so called abandoned or whatever wild animals without the proper licensing and permits then 'poachers' and profiteers would exploit the law for their own gains and that outcome is likely far more detrimental in the end then forbidding the activity to unlicensed people... Fact is there are licence and permitted animal sanctuaries an rehab places in every state that will generally take in any young wild animals you might find that need care, that or if you want you can get licensed yourself...

In Illinois they make it easy to find a rehab place, they publish a list of all current licensed rehab places and what kind of license they have...

http://www.dnr.illinois.gov/LawEnfo...sWildlifeRehabilitationList03-11-16Public.pdf

 

[mabelineandliz]

Ok look. I don't see where this argument is going. My turkey is dead, she's been dead for two years. I posted this to vent and maybe get a little understanding from people who have birds and warn against this kind of situation. And now, reading all these cold and dead comments about legality and permits is just making me feel worse. Yeah sure she would have been better off in the wild but again her mother was killed, she had no chance. She lived happily in our back yard for almost a year. We couldn't release her because she had no flock keep safe in and no concept of predators. We could have turned the eggs over to some rehabilitation four counties over but honestly we didn't think they would hatch, but we gave it our best shot because we just couldn't stomach just leaving them to die in the cold or throwing them away. I'm mean honestly could you stand to do that after you killed their mother? And about the eggs my mom told me that she's heard of people hatching and releasing turkeys, and I found some "rio grande wild turkey poults" online, I'm not getting a clear answer on releasing them, but I asked my mom again and she said that a few people she knew with quite a bit of property have released them and they do well on their own, and they are native to the region anyway but their numbers aren't great.
Either way, we should give everything a chance. Even game wardens think so. When I was younger and we lived on a ranch we had a game warden give us a fawn he found on the side of the road, he said he didn't have time to take it to a rehabilitation center so he'd just have to leave it or kill it, so he left it will us to give it the best chance. He knew it was technically illegal to do so, but he had a freaking heart, so may have broken a law but who cares because that fawn lived. I can't remember how long we had him but he wandered off after he started getting antlers (we never had him penned up, he came and he went as he pleased.)
Again, I hope some of you arguing that we should have gotten in trouble would still do the kind thing in my situation. Those laws are in place to prevent exploitation, not really to prevent true compassion.

 

[centrarchid]

Ok look. I don't see where this argument is going. My turkey is dead, she's been dead for two years. I posted this to vent and maybe get a little understanding from people who have birds and warn against this kind of situation. And now, reading all these cold and dead comments about legality and permits is just making me feel worse. Yeah sure she would have been better off in the wild but again her mother was killed, she had no chance. She lived happily in our back yard for almost a year. We couldn't release her because she had no flock keep safe in and no concept of predators. We could have turned the eggs over to some rehabilitation four counties over but honestly we didn't think they would hatch, but we gave it our best shot because we just couldn't stomach just leaving them to die in the cold or throwing them away. I'm mean honestly could you stand to do that after you killed their mother? And about the eggs my mom told me that she's heard of people hatching and releasing turkeys, and I found some "rio grande wild turkey poults" online, I'm not getting a clear answer on releasing them, but I asked my mom again and she said that a few people she knew with quite a bit of property have released them and they do well on their own, and they are native to the region anyway but their numbers aren't great.
Either way, we should give everything a chance. Even game wardens think so. When I was younger and we lived on a ranch we had a game warden give us a fawn he found on the side of the road, he said he didn't have time to take it to a rehabilitation center so he'd just have to leave it or kill it, so he left it will us to give it the best chance. He knew it was technically illegal to do so, but he had a freaking heart, so may have broken a law but who cares because that fawn lived. I can't remember how long we had him but he wandered off after he started getting antlers (we never had him penned up, he came and he went as he pleased.)
Again, I hope some of you arguing that we should have gotten in trouble would still do the kind thing in my situation. Those laws are in place to prevent exploitation, not really to prevent true compassion.

Legal part was not all that big until you began pointing a finger at another party through your venting. I have reared wild animals of several species in the past and not always legally. What you did, regardless of your age, is effectively enter a room full of strangers and exposed yourself in the very beginning as someone with an ax to sharpen. Your approach was very well designed to stir emotion in other parties in a manner that does not help the lost bird or prevent such being repeated in the future. That is something that should be done locally and immediately through a combination of better containment and law enforcement. If you went after the accused with the same level of venom you showed here, even a an innocent party would respond in a hostile manner. You also put a wild animal at exceptional risk by taming / habituating it to humans where it was only a matter time before someone would have encountered it. Even a stray dog or car could have yielded the same results if it were a female coming into lay (you said it was about 1 year old at time of demise).


I have seen numerous postings,like you presented, most by people posting only a few times. Motives behind such post are not clear but very often hostility results. I am not typically involved with those discussions but clearly involved here. Moderators here do not appear to have mechanism that is designed for dealing with such threads. If you want help, then step back and explore how if such effort with a wild turkey is to be repeated, how could it be done so as to result in a better outcome.

 

[mabelineandliz]

Legal part was not all that big until you began pointing a finger at another party through your venting. I have reared wild animals of several species in the past and not always legally. What you did, regardless of your age, is effectively enter a room full of strangers and exposed yourself in the very beginning as someone with an ax to sharpen. Your approach was very well designed to stir emotion in other parties in a manner that does not help the lost bird or prevent such being repeated in the future. That is something that should be done locally and immediately through a combination of better containment and law enforcement. If you went after the accused with the same level of venom you showed here, even a an innocent party would respond in a hostile manner. You also put a wild animal at exceptional risk by taming / habituating it to humans where it was only a matter time before someone would have encountered it. Even a stray dog or car could have yielded the same results if it were a female coming into lay (you said it was about 1 year old at time of demise).


I have seen numerous postings,like you presented, most by people posting only a few times. Motives behind such post are not clear but very often hostility results. I am not typically involved with those discussions but clearly involved here. Moderators here do not appear to have mechanism that is designed for dealing with such threads. If you want help, then step back and explore how if such effort with a wild turkey is to be repeated, how could it be done so as to result in a better outcome.

Your comparison to "coming to a room full of strangers and venting" is actually very accurate, and I'd definitely do that knowing that those strangers shared a common interest with me, and had a chance of understanding. Also, that turkey was at just as much risk as any chicken or domesticated turkey is from predators, cars, and irrational people. Historically domesticated animals do not have some sort of magic power that protects them form such things. The turkey got out of the yard because there was a storm late at night, one we didn't anticipate. And yes my writing had a lot of emotion in it, because I'm emotional about losing my pet, is there something wrong with that? I've already talked to numerous people that I know, in person, about the incident and how much it hurt me, but because they don't have birds or don't regard them as pets they write me off. The I come here and I'm attacked because of the origin of the bird. She wasn't a bobcat or mountain lion, her exact species and breed is completely legal to keep, it's just that we salvaged eggs that would have died in order to aquire her. This was not a case of "finding an 'abandoned' fawn hiding right where his mother left him to come right back" my step dad knew their mother was dead, he saw it happen. I don't know if I covered everything you said but I believe I got what stuck out at me. You have as much freedom to reply about how stupid my post is as I do to post it in the first place. And I noticed that condescending tone, because I talk about school I must be a little kid right? I am a senior in high school, I know I'm not the normal age margin here but I'm old enough to post here, just saying.

 

[MeepBeep]

her exact species and breed is completely legal to keep, it's just that we salvaged eggs that would have died in order to aquire her.

I fully understand this, and the fact you can keep domestic versions obtained from legal domestic breeding programs does not equate to being able to harvest from the wild (even in unfortunate situations) you are attempting to equate the two when in fact they are entirely different in the eyes of the law... For example anyone can buy 'domestic' mallards all over the place from legal breeders, but it's a serious federal crime to even disturb a wild mallard nest let along take an egg from a nest and hatch it for a pet...

As I stated I sold 'exotic' animals for a living and for each and every animal native to my state that I had in inventory, I had to have proof that the animal was acquired through legal channels and/or from out of state or else my butt was on the line... It rarely happened but there were a few times my state inspector or a DNR officer at an animal swap asked for the paperwork... And I'm not talking about crazy exotics either, if I had painted turtles, 3 toed box turtles, ornate box turtles, red eared sliders, salamanders or what not that are native to IL (I usually had several of each) I had to have proper paperwork in order showing I legally obtained them and didn't just catch them in my backyard or else I could have been fined, jailed and/or lost my license...

The turkey got out of the yard because there was a storm late at night, one we didn't anticipate.

From your initial post it appears you did not have proper shelter for the bird during this store or even just at night, like a secure coop?

One must be aware that pointing fingers at others when there is dirt on their own hands doesn't always sell the story all that well, especially when only one very biased side of story is being presented...

In the end I'm sorry you lost you pet...

 

[sumi]

Thank you for your participation.